Matthew Lyons, Sex Trafficking, Kentucky 2020

A Hardin County man is facing federal child exploitation charges, announced United States Attorney Russell Coleman today.

Matthew Lyons, 33, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, has been charged with sex trafficking of a child, attempted production of child pornography, attempted online enticement, distribution and possession of child pornography.

“Despite the many unknowns of this pandemic some certainties can still be relied upon,” said United States Attorney Russell Coleman. “From the U.S. Attorney’s Office to the Secret Service, and from the Radcliff PD to the professionals of Attorney General Cameron’s Office, Kentucky law enforcement is collaborating like never before to protect our most vulnerable.”

“Partnerships among Kentucky’s law enforcement community are essential in our fight to end the exploitation of children and go after those who commit crimes against them,” said Attorney General Cameron. “I’m grateful to U.S. Attorney Coleman and his team for working with our Cyber Crimes Unit to bring these charges.”

According to the Criminal Complaint filed on April 23, 2020, law enforcement officials became aware of Lyons’s criminal conduct after receiving a complaint that a minor had posted on social media about engaging in sexual activity with an adult in exchange for money. Radcliff Police Detective Richard Carman interviewed two minors, (John Doe 1 and 2), seized their mobile devices, and was granted consent to search those devices by the minors’ legal guardians.

Detective Carman identified Lyons as the adult with whom John Doe 1 and 2 had engaged in sexual activity in exchange for money. He learned that Lyons had a prior conviction in 2008 Hardin District Court, Case No. 08-F-00401, for attempted prohibited use of an electronic communication system to procure a minor for sex, a violation of K.R.S. § 510.155(1). Detective Carman obtained and executed a Kentucky state search warrant to seize and search Lyons’s mobile device.

DCI Detective Michael Littrell conducted the examinations of the cellular telephones. On Lyons’s phone, he discovered more than 1,500 image and video files that were identified by hash values of known child sexual abuse material. In review of the remaining media files, he found hundreds more images and videos that were familiar to Detective Littrell from previous investigations and were obvious depictions of actual minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

The images were stored in a pin-code protected application in a “Frequently Used” folder on Lyons’s iPhone’s main screen. The images were stored in more than 250 categorized folders. Further examination of Lyons’s iPhone revealed that on or about April 1, 2020, he was communicating with at least one 14-year-old boy (John Doe 1), on the Grindr social media app.

A later interview with John Doe 1 revealed that Lyons exchanged photographs and conversations with the boy via the app, then transitioned to text messaging. Lyons agreed to pay John Doe 1 $50.00 in exchange for Lyons performing oral sex on John Doe 1. Lyons and John Doe 1 agreed to meet at a convenience store in Hardin County, Kentucky. That same day, Lyons traveled to the convenience store and met two 14-year-old boys (John Doe 1 and John Doe 2).

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